June 6.
By the general tenour of the news from Tsaochuang, the captivity of the foreigners still in -bandit hands should not last for many more days. Putting it plainly, the bandits are being bribed by enrollment in the army to release their prisoners and the bribing seems already to have begun. If the Chinese authorities prefer that way of settling the matter, that is their - business. The main thing, for the moment, is to get the prisoners freed. But the satisfaction felt at the prospect of this wish being realized is damped by the extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs generally. It will be remembered that the Diplomatic Body informed the Chinese Government that they had decided ''to claim heavy progressive indemnities for every twenty-four hours' delay in the liberation of -the captives beginning at midnight on May 12."" It is clear that this threat frightened nobody in Peking; and now it is open to question whether even this very feeble waggling of the big stick is not forgotten. Apart from it we have not heard one single definite expression of the Diplomatic Body's intentions, to exact punishment for Lincheng and prevent its recurrence. Increasing apathy pervades the atmosphere. There is very serious danger that, once the captives are free, everybody will be 90 pleased that nothing more will be done. Be sure the Chinese officials are counting on this, Important as it is to free the captives, we emphasize at the risk of seeming callous—though we hope no one will accuse us of that—that this is a secondary matter compared with the overwhelming importance of bringing the Chinese ruling classes to a sense of their duty. As has frequently been pointed out, and as Sir Edward Pearce tellingly showed last Friday by a retrospect of the chief outrages of the last two or three years, Lincheng was but the culmination of an increasing tendency to do violence to foreigners and their interests, If the wrecking of the Tientsin express goes unpunished, it is certain that we shall have something very much worse to record in a near future. The method actually used by the Chinese authorities to get the prisoners released direct encouragement to others +0 goand do likewise. On this ocean sion it has been a train wrecked and thirty-five foreigners carried off. Next time it will be some internal treaty port, very likely Hankow or Kiukiang, attacked and a whole community rapt away. There is much speculation as to who precisely instigated the bandits'. outrage at Lincheng. That is certainly an interesting. question and, if cleared up, might aid the foreign Powers in exacting retribution, supposing they acted it. What we would emphasize again is that, whoever the instigator, the. circumstance itself. is so bad and so serious that-it calls for the most -resolute handling. It springs from the anarchy and multiplication of petty chieftainships which is the curse of China
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.